Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/177

Rh and does not conflict with innate altruism; on the contrary, altruism will first become possible in a society of fully developed individuals, of individualities. Mihailovskii considers that the struggle for individuality comprises the main content of human history and development; this struggle corresponds to the social ideal of the abolition of the division of labour, of the process by which the individual is damaged, restricted, subdivided. The division of labour must yield place to simple cooperation on the part of fully developed human beings.

"Our human ego is not something single and undivided; it is not an 'ego,' it is a 'we.' But the members of this plural have long since, by the process of organic evolution, been reduced to the level of completely subordinated individuals, whose independent significance is merged in the consciousness of the whole." Spencer, the opponent of socialism, might be content with this declaration. Here, as so often, Mihailovskii's thought is far too biological, so that he himself lapses into the detested objective method. The lack of clearness is connected with the fact that, as regards consciousness, Mihailovskii adopts the alleged explanation furnished by Haeckel, Maudsley, and others, which assumes man to comprise within himself numerous subjects and consciousnesses which are hierarchically subordinated to the whole; this whole is self-conscious, and carries out its will as a unified undivided ego.

In this connection it is necessary to refer to the concept of individuality. Mihailovskii docs not apply this term merely to the isolated human individual, as individuality, seeing that to him the family, the class, the state, the folk, etc., are likewise individualities—"egocentric" individualities fighting for their individuality.

Mihailovskii's aim is to fuse Proudhon with Louis Blanc, to effect a harmonious combination of individualism and socialism. With this end in view, he gives the following formula of progress. "Progress is the gradational approximation to the totality of individuals, to the maximum possible and most comprehensive division of labour among the organs and to the minimum possible division of labour among men. Immoral, unjust, injurious, and irrational, is everything tending to arrest this movement. Moral, just, rational, and useful, are those things alone which lessen the diversity of society while thereby increasing the diversity of the individual members of society."